Humans Much More Willing To Take Orders From a Robot

I'm a robot: Read this article.

Would you let a robot boss you around? Sure you would. You do it every day when you use a computer or your smartphone. We live in a time where we take direction from computers and computer programs far too often. And who's to say when robots will eventually become sentient and then overthrow us? Who will be writing the blog post about that day, huh?

A new study from Canada reveals that we are apparently all too ready to take directions from a robot overlord. A study at the Human Computer Interaction lab in Manitoba, Canada shows that people would perform a task they did not want to do about half the time -- if a robot asked them to do it. To put that in plain English, about half of us will be sold into human-slavery when the robots eventually rise up against us, and about half of us will lead the resistance.

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However, when the tasks asked became longer and more difficult, about half (46%) of the people who complied with the task began arguing with the robot and trying to reason with it, compared to 84% who did a long task (around 80 minutes) when asked by a human. Read for yourself:

...many of the volunteers argued with the robot, and interacted with it as if it were human. Most apparently believed that the robot was issuing requests autonomously (it wasn't, a human being was behind a glass wall controlling things) and responded accordingly. They also found that some of the volunteers even tried bartering, either with themselves or the robot, by requesting another task or by suggesting out loud that perhaps the robot was malfunctioning.

And what if that robot was an attractive robot? We'd probably all do exactly it says. None of us would kick Bride Of Pinbot out of bed, or even Rosie from The Jetsons now that that I'm thinking about it, because she works damn hard and deserves a night off, y'know?